A Secret I Can't Keep
by hushedgreylily
Summary: Sequel to Hot Blooded Creatures, Clawen 60s AU. Suddenly rebellious Claire and stable hand Owen find their feet in the new reality they've fallen into. But whilst Claire's content treading water, Owen wants to try and swim to land. Smutty.
1. the change

**So, in short, in Hot Blooded Creatures: Claire's been helping running the Dearing family estate for years, becoming strong and independent, but now her father has decided to leave it to a distant family relation, and Claire will therefore be married in the summer. To the repulsive Victor Hoskins. Her old friend, ex Naval officer and new stable hand at the estate (Owen Grady) asks her to think about what** _ **she**_ **wants for a change, and smut ensues. Of course, I suggest you read it, but that's all you really need to know if you don't want to.**

 **This starts almost immediately afterwards and spreads over the next tumultuous months.**

She feels so incredibly different but almost painfully aware that nothing seems to have changed at the same time. Like she's smuggling something immensely valuable and under no circumstances can anyone find out.

She feels _different_ inside – like when she looks in the mirror she should look more dramatically altered than just have that stupid wide smile on her face, and if she thinks on the smile for more than two seconds something that's still quite alien tingles between her legs, and she feels like she's hiding the most illicit secret.

She supposes she should feel some sort of guilt, either for the act itself or the fact she can't stop thinking about it, but somehow she can't bring herself to. Because she can't remember the last time anything ever felt this _right_ , and for once she's being completely selfish. Because this is all about her, not about profits in the estate, a good turnover next year, or the Dearing family name. This is about how completely unbelievable she felt, crashing down from that high, a high she hadn't even known was possible, and those never-before-seen feelings; between her thighs, sparking across every inch of skin that brushed with Owen's, and somewhere in her heart.

(and probably about how Owen felt, too. He seemed to enjoy himself).

Last night, she snuck back into the house the back way, through corridors she hadn't used since she was tearing down them with Karen and Owen in their much younger years. She managed to get up to her bedroom without making a sound, avoiding all the creaking floorboards and missing any nighttime wanderers. She locked the door to her room and collapsed between her pillows, that huge stupid smile refusing to leave her face. Owen had been so kind, helping her get all cleaned up and helping her to straighten her clothes (all roughly discarded in the throes of passion) when they were back on her person, so she left the stable cabin looking like the Claire Dearing any member of the estate she might happen upon would know, without suspecting anything had changed.

So it was an invisible scar, almost, everything that had happened. As she eased into her nightgown, remembering the burning of his fingers on every corner of her body, she had sighed. So much had changed, but nothing was a promise, nothing was a future, nothing was certain.

* * *

Turns out, it wasn't slipping away as quickly as she'd expected. She woke up, before the sunlight slipping through her window usually woke her, breathing heavily with that strange burning sticky and warm between her legs. Feeling herself flush violently as she fell back into consciousness, the dream played on repeat behind her eyes – Owen pressing her back against the rose trellis again, but this time with his pants around his ankles, his glorious manhood on show, and he's snaking those long, roughened fingers beneath her skirt waistband, into her panties. Sliding against that previous unexplored, barely understood place that's suddenly the most sensitive in her whole body… she hitches a breath, before shaking herself.

Nice young ladies surely should certainly not be thinking like that, let alone dreaming about it. She's always ignored the mumblings of her parents and the senior staff on the Dearing estate, that Owen Grady wasn't 'made of the same cloth as the Dearing family' and 'a bad influence', but she'd never expected his ability to corrupt her to quite this degree.

Quite so deliciously.

She sighs. Despite the sinfully wonderful dream, and the feelings that are stacking up inside her, she has to get on with her day. She has to step back into the shoes that she's still walking around in for a very limited amount of time, and maybe – just maybe – she can make them all regret their decision that she isn't the best to ever run the Dearing estate. And that wonderful, heavenly experience – she has to shut that out of her mind. She has to think about everything else she is, other than this newly awakened young woman with a body burning for one young man.

Because she has no idea what's going to happen.

* * *

It takes about two hours of having her 'normal morning' before she comes up with a weak excuse to find an opportunity to see him. Mentioning perhaps slightly too loudly to anyone who might be listening, she decides she's going for a morning ride.

As she walks into the yard, she sees him in the far corner, grooming Gray the headstrong pure black gelding they'd just bought in from the Hammond stud farm. She watches the horse pawing the ground impatiently, still a little temperamental, and smiles to herself. For her first ride in a few years, she'll go with one of the horses a little more calm and gentle. Lex the mare, perhaps.

Her thinking fades when he looks up, having completed Gray's front legs, and when his eyes meet hers everything disintegrates in her mind. Everything changes. That normal day she was going to have, despite the night before, fades into obscurity. Because suddenly, with his eyes on hers, it's as if his hands are all over her body again and his mouth is everywhere and she can feel him inside her…

Her breath hitches, just from a look. And then that tiny half smirk spreads across his face and it's taking all the strength in the world not to jump him right there, in broad daylight, with Zara, the mayor of Jackson's daughter, who keeps her horses on the Dearing estate, just saddling up her stallion yards away. She walks towards him, in her usual business like, no-fuss stride, trying to ignore her heart thumping behind her ears.

There's a tiny moment when they stare at each other, as if both of them daring the other to make the first move, to shatter the already cracking ice, but only a tiny moment.

"I-" she starts at the same time as he says "Miss Dearing" and she lets a little smile grace her lips as she gives him an almost imperceptible nod.

"Miss Dearing, it may be of interest to you to read the veterinarian's report on Rex's lameness…"

There's the tiniest sparkle in his eyes, the tiniest hint for her to pick up on, but she's studying that _perfect_ face down to every last freckle, and she couldn't miss it.

"Certainly." She smiles, hoping the excitement fluttering in her chest doesn't sound so obvious in her voice.

Owen checks the knot attaching Gray's halter to the loop on the yard wall with a tug, and smiles.

"Right this way then."

As she walks right behind him, she feels her legs could give out from under her any moment.

The moment they get into the stable office, shutting the door quietly behind them, he spins to face her, his eyes almost as black as Gray's coat. Her heart thumping in her chest, she takes a small, almost nervous step towards him, and his hand finds its way to cup her chin, straightening her face and forcing her eyes to lock with his.

"I reckon we have about five minutes before Zara sets off…"

Almost breathless, she cuts in, "And she's always at least an hour…"

"Gray has plenty of hay in the yard…"

She raises an eyebrow almost imperceptibly at him, as if to ask him why he still seems to be persuading both her and himself about what he's about to do. He gives her a half smile as he leans towards her, letting her close the gap between them, leaving the ball in her court.

He tastes like she remembers, and his mouth feels as hot and demanding and _loving_ against hers as it did the night before, but there's almost a flicker of mischief there now, because they're fitting in a tryst, of sorts, just a shallow stable brick wall away from the Dearing estate and the daily goings on. The hand on her chin threads up roughly into her hair, and one of her last lucid thoughts is that she doubts Owen has a hairbrush that hasn't been used on a horse's mane or tail around the stables, and she'll look like she's been up to something _untoward_ when she heads outside back into the real world.

He starts to walk her back, though, his mouth never leaving hers, towards the old desk, and suddenly she feels an almost electric jolt zip through her, focusing low in her abdomen. Because in the year before Karen had gotten married, she'd had one novel (if you could even call it that) she'd gotten from one of the workers on the vineyard, and it could only be described as adult and inappropriate, but somehow it had almost been _enthralling._ And Claire had had a sneak read of it, just opening it somewhere midway through, and she's suddenly remembering what she'd been reading about.

A secretary, and a business owner, doing very illicit things with the secretary sat on the edge of the boss' desk. She flushes a little more as Owen's mouth travels down her throat, unsure if it's the recollection of what she read, what the man's lips can do to her, what else she can imagine using his lips for, or a combination of all of them.

Sure enough, Owen reaches haphazardly behind her and something clatters to the floor, and then she can feel the cold, hard wood of the clear desk behind her, and warm, hard pressure of Owen's arousal against her hip bone. She slides up to be sitting on the desk, gasping in an effort to keep down the moans that are starting to threaten to escape.

"Fucking hell, Claire, you're something else…" he hisses against her collarbone, as she opens her legs and he steps between them. The language doesn't make her shudder anywhere near as much as it did the night before. She snakes her hands down from where they've found themselves around his neck, tracing down his chest, thinking she'll revel in the supple muscles there later, and finding the buttons of his stable breeches. With trembling fingers, she starts slipping the buttons through the rough holes in the fabric, and she feels the hand that isn't threaded in her hair pushing her jodhpurs roughly over her hips, with little success. Laughing, and with an ease she had never envisaged before in a situation quite like this, she pushes him away and start sliding off her jodhpurs and riding boots, quickly followed by her panties. He seems to take the hint in seconds and finishes unbuttoning his pants, and kicking them roughly to a corner of the room, his work boots long discarded.

For a moment, as he steps back towards her, looking almost _predatory,_ she considers herself, naked from the waist down, sat on _the stable desk_ in a little makeshift office, without windows, yes, but with an unlocked door right in front of her. But in that moment, none of that seems to matter. It doesn't seem to mean anything, it certainly doesn't add up to something Claire Dearing does **not** do in her mind, and as Owen pushes himself against her, his erection pressing against her inner thigh, all thoughts of anything other than flesh and hunger and _love_ vanish.

His kiss is tender, as his fingers trace delicately between her legs, assessing how ready she is for him, and as his fingers slip between her folds with ease, his tongue against hers is somehow more urgent, somehow more demanding. She rocks her hips, almost involuntarily, towards him, begging him in her movements and the sudden ferocity of both their kisses to offer her everything, once again.

Because once he's been inside her once, she's felt somehow _empty_ without him.

"I need you." She gasps, and it's different to I want you, like he's one of those illegal substances that if you smoke you're forever dependent on.

He slides between her legs almost effortlessly, but with the sudden rush of pleasure, that sudden _complete_ feeling, she bites his bottom lip. She feels him chuckle against her, and the slightly metallic taste of blood offers itself for a moment.

And then she's rocking, slowly, and he's pulling almost all the way out of her before slamming back in, and she can feel that pleasure building inside her again, like she's never left his arms, not really.

"God, Owen…" she whispers, as she feels it building, far quicker that yesterday, maybe it's something about the angle sat on the desk like this with her legs wrapped around him, but this feels that little bit more heavenly, even more like she's about to crash and burn, ruins of herself.

He meets her eyes, and there's so much in there she's almost scared, for a moment, but then he rests his forehead on her shoulder, and she can feel his gasping breaths against her, as he slides his fingers back between her legs and she's not quite sure exactly what he's doing there, but it must be some sort of magic, because all of a sudden she's exploding, crashing all around him, and she claps a hand to her mouth so she doesn't scream his name.

With one more thrust, she feels him empty inside of her, and then he's leaning on her, so drained he's almost a dead weight. She tightens her legs around him, holding him close as she feels him soften inside her, and she buries her face in his hair as he gets his breath back.

When he looks right at her, she presses her lips against his, because that says so much more than anything she could put into words.

And then they're scrabbling to find their clothes, and there's a heavy silence falling over them, because _what in the name of God in heaven_ are they doing and _surely this can't go on._

But as she walks towards the door, and he catches her arm, pulls her flush against him and kisses her one last, long time, she supposes right now, it doesn't matter. Right now, it's happening. And if he's her only ounce of sanity in a world that's turning upside down and not making sense anymore, well, he's an ounce of sanity that feels better than she ever could have imagined.

It'll go on, for now.

 **Soooo… apparently this (part 2 of the trilogy) has decided it would like to be a multi-chap. Any of you that were there back in the early JW days for Rescue Flares will remember that sometimes when my fics decide they want to be more than my default oneshot, they can keep going on a lot longer than I ever intend. So I'm not sure, as yet, quite how many chapters this will be. What I am sure of, however, is I'm going on holiday tomorrow and won't be back until August 5** **th** **, so don't hold your breath for chapter two. But I promise it will be on its way.**

 **Please drop me a lovely little review, I would love to know what you think, both of this and where Clawen are going next in this little world! I have a plan for them, but that is always subject to change for any brilliant ideas!**


	2. the fairytale

**I am so indubitably sorry for how long this chapter has taken to get to publishing. Insert valid excuse here – I've had a huge amount of real life stuff go on, family problems that were requiring my full attention, the start of a new job, and my own personal problems that weren't keeping me in a writing frame of mind. I won't bore you with any further details. On with the chapter!**

 **Two**

She doesn't manage to catch him the next day, but by day four he's found one of the old side doors they used to use as kids and takes her up against the wall in an old disused corridor, hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming – it's become apparent very quickly that Claire is **noisy**. She half staggers back to her bedroom, hoping no one will see her, sure she looks flustered and out-of-place, despite Owen assuring her as she flattened her clothes that she looked as she always did. When she finally gets into her room, thankfully running into nobody on the way, she collapses against the door as she closes it, almost, her heart racing and her entire body feeling on fire.

Owen Grady is both dangerous and sublime, she thinks to herself, as she tried to regather all her thoughts. And he's going to be her undoing.

Karen has the baby that weekend, a little boy, Zachary. Claire's sure for a moment she sees hesitance in the Captain's eyes – he has a _male heir,_ and if Karen could just provide him another one… But that look leaves his eyes almost as soon as it appeared, because the Mitchell estate always has and always will be bigger and more successful than the Dearing estate, without any shortage of uses for good male heirs. Claire sighs, almost audibly, and her mother's eyes look pointedly at her, as if to say _you could provide us with everything we need, just not fast enough._ The thought of providing them with a male heir courtesy of Victor Hoskins turns something in her stomach – now she's been with a man (a divinely gentle, fierce to the point of heavenly, heart rate increasing man) _like that_ , in the way good male heirs are produced, the thought of Victor Hoskins and his slightly musty, dried sweat scent being with her in that context seems even more nauseating. She's seen what it can be, now, and it appears Owen Grady has ruined her for everyone else.

But in the next moment the Captain and her mother are organising to stay at the Mitchell estate the coming weekend, and are endowing Claire with the responsibilities for the lesser Dearing estate in that time, the Captain firmly mentioning surveying the vineyards and the kitchens once in the weekend, like she hasn't been holding this estate above the surface of the water for the last few years. But she simply nods and smiles, her usually antagonistic silence making way for nothing but _longing._ Because a weekend with the Dearing estate to herself means so many different things to her now.

It means she and Owen could set up somewhere other than the stable cabin and disused corridors, it means maybe lazing in bed in one of the rarely visited fishing cabins for an entire morning, it means _pretending,_ if only for a couple of days, that this could be their normal. And although somewhere at the back of her brain she knows that's both dangerous and heart-breaking, because she's going into to it knowing it's playing with an impossibility, a fate that's never going to be hers, it's still somehow _enticing._ It's everything and nothing at exactly the same time.

* * *

When she tells him, he looks wistful for a moment, unable to mask, if only for a second, those things she was burying when she first started thinking about it.

"A whole weekend, like there's no one else in the world, Owen…" she whispers against his skin from the stable cabin bed. "How heavenly will that be?"

He looks, if only for a moment, like he has a thousand things to say, a thousand arguments, a thousand reasons it's-just-not-enough. But she sees them dissolve behind his eyes within moments, and an almost half-hearted lusty smile sinks into his features, as he traces the smooth, pale, unmarked skin of the small of her back with those rough callused fingers, burning like wildfire.

"You have no idea what I'm going to do to you…" he half growls when he finds the energy and the voice to put words out there that don't reflect the turmoil inside, and he slides a hand between her thighs with the now well practised familiarity a few weeks of illicit encounters has given them.

She finds herself gasping against the skin of his shoulder in the place of thinking about his delayed reaction, and maybe that was his intention all along.

* * *

It's as wonderful as she had imagined, and something better, because she finds when he's between her thighs she can _forget_ everything this is and isn't with much more ease – he's so much more that a welcome distraction, but when she needs him to be one…

And he was right, she had no idea what he was going to do to her. It starts the first night in the cabin, as they lock the main door and light the fire, slinking slowly towards the bedroom, eyes full of hope and expectation and impossible futures. She moves to start unbuttoning her own bodice and he catches her hands, stopping her.

"You're all mine, tonight." He breathes, and there's something she hasn't quite seen before in the darks of his eyes, and it's tantalising, promising and mildly fear inducing. Somewhere in the back of her mind she shakes her head at herself and her pitiful weakness for this man as the only sound she can answer with is a whimper, but then he's kissing her so deeply and running those rough fingers so lightly through her hair, and only leaning against her just slightly, the vague outline of what she's doing for him touching against her for no more than a second, treating her like she's almost divine.

His touch continues to be worshipful as she feels those fingers tuck her hair behind her ears, and now one's dancing along her collarbone whilst the other is cupping the back of her head, pulling her slightly more forcefully into him, suddenly a _hunger_ radiating off him that almost scares her. The noises that come out of her mouth as his mouth and _that tongue_ trace over her jaw line, down her throat, are close to embarrassing, but suddenly she's nothing but a puddle of longing and excitement and _love_ on the floor in front of him.

He unfastens every button of her bodice himself, with a meticulous sluggishness that's almost driving her insane. And as he slowly eases her down into the mattress, his feather light lips sneak to the flesh suddenly freed from her brassiere, and dance, barely touching her, until his lips close around her nipple, and his teeth toy with the pebbled flesh as one of those hands finds its counterpart.

"Good God…" she hisses, and she feels him chuckle against her, the vibrations of his laughter making her breath catch in her throat and that feeling in her lower belly intensify. She wants him inside her, and she wants him soon.

She reaches down towards his hips, grasping at thin air, and she tries to tug him up towards her when that fails. He stills the caresses of his tongue for a moment, looking up at her, something of a devilish smile on his face.

"Patience." He whispers, one corner of his mouth turning up. "This'll be good."

And with that, before she can argue, that mouth of his is snaking down past her breasts, tracing her midline, and those nimble fingers are sliding her skirt down her thighs and snaking right back up to trace the lace of her panties everywhere other than where she most wants them. Suddenly he's teasing, fingers dancing at the top of her curls, at the crease of her thigh, on her hip bone, but not where she's _burning_ for him, without shame.

But then, without pre-warning, he rips at the lace. She hears a tear, but before she can scold him for ruining her clothing there's something beautifully unfamiliar sliding along her folds, and it barely takes her a second to work out it's his tongue.

"Owen, God…" she whispers, and then she can't catch her breath and the sounds that come out of her mouth are unable to form words. That tongue strokes gently, slowly backwards and forwards, and suddenly his fingers are there too, gently teasing a bundle of nerves that feels like with one more motion at the right angle, in the right way, might explode.

She feels like, in that moment, she could die happy and no one could ever say she hadn't lived. Because she's never felt anything quite like it, this man doing things that are surely unspeakable, sinful and certainly not to be enjoyed by a nice young lady. But she doesn't regret it for a second, she's never felt this close to flying in the heavens in her life, and even the guilt that's chasing her is never going to catch up.

It's when suddenly his fingers are sliding within her and his mouth take its turn on that bundle of nerves that she collapses around him, screaming something – she's unsure what – into the miles of silence around the fishing cabin.

As she catches her breath and he slides back up beside her, laughing to himself at the curse words he didn't even know she knew, she can only whisper _thank you_ between gasping for breath.

He gives her a smile that suddenly looks so full of love it frightens her a little, and as he leans in to kiss her she tastes something quite alien on his lips. She realises, in just a moment, that it's herself she can taste, and somehow that lights the fire burning between her legs all over again and she pulls him towards her, yearning to feel that throbbing hardness inside her all over again.

* * *

The morning the Captain and Mrs Dearing are set to return, she lays in his arms for those last few moments of heavenly surrealism, everything suddenly _heavy._

"I've loved this." She whispers, toying with his curls gently, "I don't want this to end."

She hears the sigh and she feels his chest rise and fall beneath her.

"So don't let it end." He breathes, closing his eyes, as if in prayer. "Run away with me."

She snorts, that endearing giggle shaking the sheets around them. "That only happens in novels, Owen." She scolds, but he can hear a tinge of hope in the voice heavy with regret.

"What's tying you here, though, really?" he asks, but puts a finger to her lips before she can argue back. "They're taking the estate away from you, they're sending you like a package to that Hoskins man, and everything you've ever done…" he sighs, and looks her in the eyes for the first time that morning. "I could give you this, every day… we could… I'll build us a home, I'll build us our very own cabin somewhere…"

She's not sure what he's hoping for when he pulls his finger away from her lips, what he was ever wanting. But she pulls herself out of the bed, slipping some clothes on, not meeting his eyes.

"That's not the way the real world works, Owen." She sighs, but the picture he'd painted, if only for a moment, lingers, refusing to completely dissolve.

She supposes, for now, it's something of a thread of hope.

 **Again, you have all my apologies for the extreme delay here! And I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I would love to hear what you think, as always! I'm sorting things out (slowly) so hopefully there'll be another chapter soon(er than before). Stick around, I promise you it'll turn up at some point!**


	3. the ultimatum

**Sorry for the wait, but at least it's significantly better than last time! Hope you enjoy this chap – I'm starting to bring the angst now!**

During the next few days, so busy with estate finances, ensnared by Mrs Dearing at any given opportunity insinuating that she is only going to be at the perfect child bearing age for a short period of time, and completely unable to do anything more than meet Owen's eye across the yard, she realises how deeply entrenched she actually is. She feels like she can't breathe when she realises it's been 48 hours since his lips were on hers, his hands on her body, his murmurings reaching nothing but her ears. He's the first image in her mind, the first name on her lips. It, quite frankly, isn't healthy, and she's filled with that cold dread again – she doesn't like feeling this powerless, this _dependant_ on anyone, even if the man has done nothing but _worship_ her since this began.

She thinks, and she flits between deciding it is a ridiculous girlish fancy and an absolute certainty, that she sees the exact same thing behind his eyes. And it's not just that he _wants_ her, which she is certain he does – if he feels half as satisfied by their recent new arrangement as she does – there's something deeper than that. A longing for that fairy tale future that can never come to pass, that cabin out in the wilds somewhere, far away from business opportunities, good male heirs, forced marriages and class boundaries. A place that has quickly become the only place she can imagine – her head had been so full of dreams for so long, but dreams for the Dearing estate, dreams expanding it, starting new ventures, finally reaching a place in this world where she could sit at the head of the estate without anyone by her side - but suddenly, the only dream she can even consider constructing is this beautiful impossibility. This world that can never be.

Damn Owen Grady. Turning her into the foolish young woman she'd always prided herself on not being, with those dreams she thought silly, pretentious – white dresses and warm, homely houses and tiny feet…

She grits her teeth when she lets her mind reach those extents. She disappoints herself, thinking like that. Claire Dearing has never been anyone's, and she's not starting now. She's not forgetting everything she's ever made herself to be for a few loving words, a few gentle caresses, the odd look in his eyes with the ability to silence her. She's been training herself for too long to be suddenly _failing_ at everything she'd spent the last almost ten years being proud of.

What's the most difficult to overcome is the fact she knows she's lying to herself when she thinks like that.

* * *

He catches her after handing Lex, the trusty mare, to one of the grooms.

"Could I… could I show you Rex's latest veterinary report, Miss Dearing?" he suddenly blurts, sounding more like a scolded school boy than an established employee. When she is certain no one else is left in the stables to either hear them or see them, she rolls her eyes.

"We're a bit past that façade, aren't we, Owen?" she hisses, and she can almost hear the exhaustion in her own voice. He gives her something of a bitter smile.

"I don't know where we are, Claire. I haven't got a clue, I-"

Eyes flashing, she marches pointedly towards the stable office, swinging the door wide enough and with enough force for it to slam closed just behind him as he shadows her.

"There is a time and a place for these conversations, and it's not in-"

A dry chuckles stops her short. "Is there? Because here I am having no idea when we're going to actually _talk…_ "

She frowns. "Talk about what? What is there to talk about?"

He looks _hurt_ , and that pains her. She'd never wanted to hurt him. "I dunno, Claire. What we are, where we're going, what's happening-"

"Owen, we-"

He holds up a hand, cutting her off. "Listen to me."

It's shock rather than obedience that keeps her quiet.

"… how long you're going to pretend to ignore everything going on around us, whether it's going to take that Hoskins bloke actually marrying you-" she shudders involuntarily "-to make you see that something has to change…"

"I-"

He takes a step towards her, a fire burning behind his eyes she can't quite translate. It's something between what she sees just before her mouth collides with his and an anger than almost scares her. "… about me being completely, utterly and irrevocably _in love_ with you, whether I want to be or not, and we-"

She has to make him stop talking, because the more he says, the deeper it cuts, the more it hurts, the harder it becomes to breathe.

So she crashes her lips against his, with all the grace and decorum they had on the docks a whole lifetime ago, and up against the trellis, only weeks previously, but a whole lifetime seems to have happened in between. With the comfort and familiarity these weeks have given them, it takes merely seconds for the two of them to meld against one another, as if there's not space anywhere between them, just thin, pitiful layers of fabric.

Fabric that shouldn't be there, and fabric that she's not in a state of mind to worry about as she hears something not dissimilar to a tear as he forces her riding blouse over her head, most of the buttons still fastened. And they're staggering, with an almost rehearsed elegance, towards the stable cabin door, which is thankfully slightly ajar, because she has no doubt they are neither of them in a fit state to operate door handles, let alone keys and locks.

As he half throws her onto the thin mattress, tearing his own shirt over his head and fumbling with the fastening of his breeches, she pushes her jodhpurs almost blindly down over her hips, kicking boots off and any items of clothing that go with them.

He towers over her, stealing rough, messy kisses as he pins both her wrists into the pillow above her head with one hand, guiding himself roughly inside her with the other.

She chokes for a moment, it's all very sudden and fast and she's hardly had a chance to _think._ He doesn't slow, he doesn't apologise, he simply pounds into her, hard and fast without meeting her eyes. She can feel his fingers digging into her skin just above her hip bone, and can imagine the fingerprint bruises she'll be sporting for days, but something in the grunts, the roughness, the almost caveman-like behaviour has the warmth building inside her at some sort of breakneck speed, and suddenly despite everything he's sliding in and out of her, she's deliciously wet, and she can feel her own climax building.

He spills inside her before she gets a chance to quite reach the cliff edge, but he does have the decency to thrust into her three more times, leading her right to the edge and taking her hand tightly as she glides off, seeing stars.

As they both lay, panting, afterwards, he twines his fingers loosely back through hers like a man that had been irretrievable in the last moments.

"I'm sorry." He whispers, and it all sounds so _hopeless_ she could cry.

Taking a deep breath, she rolls to face him, pressing a kiss against his jaw, silencing him.

Words can only hurt both of them.

* * *

As she re-buttons her riding blouse, trying to arrange it so the ripped buttons are less obvious, and he tugs his work pants back over his hips, she feels that lump in her throat building.

"Something needs to change, Claire." He whispers, and he sounds almost scared of her reaction.

In reality, he's terrified.

"There isn't anything we can change."

That just scares him more.

"There is, though. You could… you're stronger than you think you are – you need to tell them."

She half laughs, and immediately hates herself for the look on his face. "Tell them? Tell my parents I'm screwing the stable hand and I don't want to make them a decent match and a good male heir and-"

He turns his head, like he can't look at her.

There's a long silence before he spits, "Screwing the stable hand?"

She swallows, guilt rushing over her. "You know what I mean. That's how it looks, that's how it sounds. It's so much more, Owen, I know that, I-"

"Is it, though?" he mutters, pulling his boots on, opening the door. "The way I see it, Claire, you have a choice, if it's anything more." He takes a deep breath, a visible gathering of courage. "You tell them, or you take me up on that offer of running away. I'm not going to be the stable hand you can _screw_ when you're Mrs Hoskins…"

The name leaves her shuddering as he lets the stable cabin door slam behind him.

* * *

As she sneaks up one of the old corridor passageways – she can't seem to stop tears coming out of her eyes, and despite her best efforts, the riding blouse doesn't look presentable – longing to lock herself in her room, she catches the sound of voices from the drawing room.

She knows those voices. Captain Dearing and Victor Hoskins, and all of a sudden, she's frozen to the spot, hoping and praying to anyone who might be listening that they're talking about some business deal and she won't even come into the conversation.

Who is she kidding? Captain Dearing hasn't made a business deal in almost a decade, and the Hoskins estate doesn't deal in any of their produce. She feels the twinges of nausea as she catches snippets of the conversation.

 _A match I've been hoping for for years…_

 _As head of this household, and her father…_

 _A fine male heir…_

She feels her skin crawl at the sound of their combined misogynistic chuckles at the last one, and imagines, bile rising in her throat, that handshake, as her own father passes her off to another man like one of their best mares for breeding.

Suddenly, she has to run, all thought of silence in the secret corridors forgotten. She dashes round the last corner and into her room, big, shuddering breaths controlling her as she locks the door behind her.

Suddenly, Owen's words, although still infuriating her – _no one_ gives Claire Dearing an ultimatum – are the only thing that makes sense.

Suddenly, all those huge and terrifying threats about her future are a little bit bigger and a little bit more frightening when they're that much more real. And that fantasy world of Owen's with a cabin and the only man she ever wants to touch her like that between her bed sheets – that doesn't seem so alien anymore.

Suddenly, it's near enough impossible to breathe.

 **Hope you enjoyed another one! Sorry for the increasing angst and this chapter being light on the smut – this story somehow grew some sort of plot, and therefore sometimes it has to be something other than smut heavy. (But don't worry though, there's plenty more of both to come – what floats your boat haha!)**

 **Please leave me a review – I love hearing from you guys, however short they are!**

 **(and I've got one more week at work before half term, so another chapter shouldn't be on the too distant horizon – stick with me!)**


	4. the once more

**As promised, a wait that's not been too long! Hope you enjoy this one – apologies for how heavy it is on the angst – I am an angst lover, and it is my favourite thing to write, so I often tend to slip back into it! But it fits incredibly nicely here in the homegrown plot!**

 **Enjoy!**

The words echo like curses around her, as Captain Dearing, with a smile on his face only akin to the one when Karen's newborn was revealed to be a boy, informs her almost crudely she has been _requested_ by Victor Hoskins. Her mother fans herself a little, as if in excitement, and her parents start talking about wedding dates and summer weddings and how quickly they can get there, because 'time is of the essence when it comes to a child, Claire, at your age'.

No one thinks to ask her if this is what she wants, no one seems to realise this should be a question posed to her, not to her father, and Claire Dearing, unaware she's ahead of her time, particularly for the vineyard estates down south, suddenly considers how unfair this whole thing is. For her, mainly, the thought of Victor Hoskins at the end of the aisle, with his hand in hers, in her bed, turns her gut, but also for women – when will they be something that has the right to control over their own life? It sounds like a dream.

She swallows all these thoughts, the little bit of bile that has risen in her throat at the thought of that Hoskins brother, and gives her father a small, convoluted smile.

"Exactly as hoped for the estate, Captain." She manages, her stomach churning, her mouth dry.

There's not a moment where either the Captain or Mrs Dearing look like they were expecting any other response.

As she walks back to her bedroom, insisting to her parents she pack a small suitcase to travel over to Karen at the Mitchell estate tomorrow to 'inform her of the estate and the family's good fortune', her eyes sting with tears, but a bitter chuckle escapes her before she has the chance to quell it.

Because those people, her 'beloved' parents, sat in front of her, they know nothing about her. They hadn't expected a moment of disagreement – because they know the youngest Dearing daughter; the estate and the Dearing family has always been top of her list of priorities, and she'd taken the news that they were leaving the estate to a male relative and marrying her off a few weeks ago with nothing but grace, acceptance and a cool, calm, business minded head.

When in reality, she'd swallowed that news and put up the mask she'd become an expert at wearing, escaped the confines of propriety and found herself in the arms of the stable hand who was once one of her closest friends - before society and birth had torn them apart, and she'd barely left since. She'd let him take her in his bed, in the main bedroom in one of the fishing cabins, up against the desk in the stable office and pressed against walls in the old deserted corridors like a common girl. Her parents had no idea who she was and what she was capable of.

As she shuts herself in her bedroom, Owen's last words to her echo in her ears. _You tell them, or you take me up on that offer of running away._ What had ever given him the right to give her an ultimatum? More importantly, when had he gotten such a hold on her that the words _completely, utterly and irrevocably in love with you_ had her heart beating faster and everything she'd ever wanted – for the Dearing estate, for her future, for the family name – to dissolve into thin air.

She half shakes her head at herself. He shouldn't have that grip on her. Swallowing, she remembers earlier, how rough and fast and inconsiderate he was with her, the searing pain she felt as he pushed inside her without even thinking about her, and the bruises she found on her skin in a perfect fingerprint pattern. There was nothing perfect about him. Nothing, certainly, that should translate to this hold he seems to have caught her in.

She swallows again, and slips her riding boots on.

* * *

She walks straight into the stable, where he's just hanging up the brushes after grooming Gray.

"See me in the office, Grady." She hisses, and he looks up in shock. For a moment their eyes lock, and she thinks for one horrible moment he's going to argue with her here, not in the confines of the rickety stable cabin that has quickly become some sort of backwards _sanctuary_ for them.

He follows her into the office, fixing his gaze on her in a way that unsettles her slightly.

She turns the office door key roughly in the lock, hoping the expression on her face makes it clear it's not for anything _like that_ , and she turns to him, folding her arms across her chest, shielding herself.

"You have **no** right to give me an ultimatum, Owen." She hisses.

"Oh, it's Owen, now, is it?" he half laughs, a bitterness tainting what is usually such a warm rumbling chuckle, "A moment ago I was nothing but Grady…"

She rolls her eyes. "You don't get to give me choices like that… choices you know I don't have… you don't get to throw around names like _Mrs Hoskins-_ " the name catches in her mouth, "-and it's cruel to dance things in front of my eyes like that that could never happen…"

His eyes flash. "Who says they can't happen?"

"Owen, you've got six months of stable hand wages and I… I have _nothing_. We wouldn't survive past the hills, we wouldn't even get to the border… it's a fairy tale, and it always has been… you don't get to give me ultimatums like that, kid me into thinking for one tiny, lost moment that this could _be_ something…"

He sighs, because she's not wrong. This has always been something close to impossible, and he's always known it, really. And she's Claire Dearing, for God's sake, she's not going to run away with him with nothing but a few dollars and the clothes on her back, with nowhere to sleep, nowhere to hide, nothing to eat. It's not even something he could ask of her.

"The Navy money will be coming soon, Claire… my end of service pay check… we have time…" he meets her eyes, and suddenly they're soft again, loving, and a painful lump forms in her throat.

She shakes her head slowly, tears dashing down her cheeks. "We've run out of time, Owen…"

She takes a shaky step towards him, reaching for his hand. Her hands are surprisingly cold, he thinks. "Victor Hoskins asked for my hand this afternoon. My father accepted."

There's the heaviest silence as he looks down at their joined hands, unable to meet her eyes, the enormity washing over him.

"Run out of time…" he finally echoes, breathing the whispers against the skin of her collarbone. At some point in the last seconds she's found herself all _perfectly close_ to him again, and his other hand is resting on her waist. He finally looks up, as if he's been steeling himself to meet her eyes. "Give me one more night, Claire. One more time."

She gives him the solemn nod before she's even had chance to process what he's saying to her – what he's accepting, in that defeatist manner that terrifies her, and what he's asking for.

"They won't expect me again, not this evening." She breathes, pressing her forehead against the side of his face, tears thick in her voice. "Take me… imagine how it could've been…" she chokes.

He presses his lips against hers, and it's somehow _different_ , it's inexplicably _gentle_ , his tongue dancing with hers like ever but almost in worship. He pulls her tight against him, and she can feel her effect on him through his breeches – he still _wants_ her as much as she wants him. She threads her spare hand into his hair, heart thumping in her chest, and he guides them both, staggering, into the cabin, onto the bed.

Reverently, with so much contrast to the ripping and tearing of earlier, he lifts her blouse over her head and snakes a hand down to cup one of her breasts through the brassiere, feeling the hardened nub of her nipple through the silk, brushing his thumb over it, smiling slightly as her breath hitches.

Her fingers find the buckles of his breeches and are snaking into his underwear, stroking him with such _promise_ he's bucking his hips against her, cursing. He thinks he hears a chuckle as she draws her hand away, snaking up his chest.

He eases her jodhpurs down over her hips and down her legs until she can kick them off, and he's shrugging the old flannel work shirt down to his elbows as those sinful, pale fingers caress his skin. He fumbles with her brassiere, freeing her breasts, and as he discards the piece of material and lowers his mouth towards her nipple her eyes fly open.

"I'm still mad at you." She hisses, but it sounds half hearted, despondent. "I can't even look at you right now…"

For a moment, he forgets everything. Everything that's happened, everything that's happening imminently, and everything she is other than the naked woman below him. "You don't have to." He manages to grunt, and with a strength he didn't know he had in him with everything making him feel so _weak_ , he spins her so she's on her hands and knees, facing the pillows.

She lets out a little _oh_ but she doesn't fight him, as his right hand finds its way to tease her nipple again and she feels him, hard and pressed against her lower back as he braces himself behind her with his other hand.

His mouth gives sloppy, messy kisses to the nape of her neck as his fingers snake down from her breast to between her thighs, dancing for a moment, before plunging inside her.

"Jesus, Claire. " he hisses right behind her ear. "You're so ready for me."

"I need you." She manages, though she doesn't sound like she has any control over anything she's saying. He lines himself up, his fingers toying with her clit for a few seconds longer before he slides between her folds with ease.

The angle's different, and the feel of him pressed up against her back is new, and there's something _delicious_ about his hand snaking round over her hip and stroking between her legs whilst he pummels into her, and she gasps.

He sets a steady rhythm, and before realising it, she feels her hips bucking back towards him. Somehow, this feels _alien_ and more forbidden, and she feels her climax rising at an unknown speed.

"You feel amazing." She manages to whisper, and is thanked by a light graze of his teeth against the skin of her shoulder, just before she feels herself teetering and crashing around him, almost collapsing down into the bed with the enormity of it all.

He catches her before she falls, holding her up close to him with an arm wrapped around her waist, and it takes him only two more thrusts before she feels him spilling inside her, softening slowly, and he collapses against her back.

As they catch their breath, sprawled across the threadbare mattress with Owen half lying on her, they press open mouthed kisses to whatever part of each other's skin is in their reach, the _finality_ of it all almost overwhelming.

"Wow." She manages minutes later, rolling onto her side, still pressed right against him, capturing his lips this time with her own.

"Pretty good, huh?" he laughs, but it doesn't reach his eyes, and all of a sudden she wants to cry, because this was _one more time_ , and there's no going back.

"The best." She breathes, running her thumb across his cheekbone, which is somehow soothing and taunting all at the same time, but there are tears running down her own face now, and everything is hopeless and broken and over.

 **This is not (nowhere near) the end of this fic. I repeat – NOWHERE NEAR the end. So don't panic.**

 **(though feel free to leave me a lovely review about how much you're panicking right now!)**


	5. the advice

**For Foot Tapper, who's so keen to see another chapter they chased me up when I uploaded this and had to almost immediately take it down again - having a lot of formatting issues with a broken laptop and currently posting from a very temperamental tablet!**

* * *

She goes over to the Mitchell estate the next morning, to meet young Zachary and to see her sister. She's always had a strange relationship with Karen – they were close as young girls, but then the age gap between them became big enough for Karen to suddenly feel like a self-entitled adult and stop tearing around the Dearing estate with her kid sister and Owen Grady, who had suddenly become an annoying little boy. They'd grown apart then for a very long time, and the time where they'd found themselves in the same stage of life again had run very short – they'd barely had a year together as young women before Karen had found herself swept off her feet by Scott Mitchell and Claire had got all caught up in running the estate and occupying herself with the business side of things over looking for anyone to sweep her off her own feet.

So when she parks the small motorcar at the front of the Dearing estate – she'd insisted on learning to drive it despite the Captain's disapproving grimace, and there was no way she could have taken a horse this morning, because she'd have to go down to the stables – she considers that it's been too long since she's really talked to her sister, but once upon a time they were each other's best friends, and maybe Karen can offer some advice on everything that's happening right now.

The housekeeper leads her through to a receiving room where she sees her sister lounging, but looking extremely tired rather than relaxed. The soft smile on her face though as she looks down at the bassinet by her side tells her sister it's a good kind of tired, the fulfilling kind rather than the draining kind. In fact, despite the bags under her eyes, the new lines on her face, she looks happier than Claire's seen her in years.

She wonders on that as she knocks lightly on the side of the door frame, and feels her heart swell a little as her sister's face lights up. Once upon a time, they were each other's closest allies in the world, because despite everything, and how much fun they had tearing around, the three of them, at that age Owen was just a boy and little girls didn't really like little boys.

"Claire." The smile reaches Karen's voice, too. "Come and meet your little nephew."

She takes a step towards the bassinet, peering in at the tiny, red and wrinkly little boy. She tries hard not to allow her forced smile to look forced. She's never been particularly into children, which is maybe part of the reason she's never been too worried about finding herself a husband, starting herself off as head of a family, as seemingly every other girl her age. In fact, the thought of snotty nosed, inquisitive children running around is-

She stops herself suddenly, a cold chill rushing through her body. Because whenever she's had that image in her mind before, it's always seemed almost repulsive. But suddenly that shadow in the shape of a father has a face and is smiling at her with love in his eyes, and suddenly it all doesn't seem so bad after all. If the face of the father wasn't impossible, almost forbidden.

Suddenly Zachary doesn't seem so odd, suddenly he looks ever so peaceful, sleeping there, and all those tiny fingers and toes look somehow perfect.

"He's adorable, Karen." She smiles, and it reaches her eyes, Karen's smile is considerably wearier, but somehow a lot wiser and somehow all knowing.

"He is." She ascertains, a kindly, honest smile on her face before she turns those eyes on her sister. "But how are you, Claire? I heard about the Hoskins boy…"

She doesn't say anything, just for a moment. The silence falls around them and it's heavy, but all of a sudden she can't remember all the years between herself and her sister, all the distance that had been slowly growing, all the time spent apart that she'd always thought had been driving a wedge between them. Because suddenly the woman in front of her has always known her best, and any act she plays will fall right through.

"It's anything but simple." She half-whispers, and suddenly the floodgates open. Because Karen's cooped up with a tiny human being here now, and she's never been anything but loyal to her sister, and they've always had some sort of unspoken agreement that they wouldn't judge one another… suddenly all her secrets are boiling over, and she can't hold them down.

"Owen Grady's back, Karen, and he's been back for some time… and I was pushing everything as far away as I could… he's been in the Navy, and the last time I saw him I kissed him on the docks, you knew that…"

Karen nods, looking almost pensive, her face not giving anything away.

"…and suddenly the Captain was telling me he was giving the estate to Cousin Darrell in Mumbai, and suddenly Owen was right there, right in front of me, and-" she cuts herself off, and when she looks at her sister there's a honesty in her eyes at the moment she realises she's never felt like this about anything, let alone about another person. "-it's beautiful, Karen, he's wonderful, and I know this isn't what I should be doing… I'm to be married, for God's sake, but I… it's crept up on me but I love him so much… I don't think I can marry that Hoskins guy… the thought of him taking me like that, I…"

Karen swallows, still silent, and puts her hand over her sisters, her thumb smoothing small circles. Claire takes a deep, slow breath, trying to return to the real world.  
There's a long silence, and then the older Dearing girl speaks.

"Zachary… he's the best thing that's ever happened to me, Claire. But right now… right now he's the only good thing that's happening to me. It would appear that Scott only had one intention, marrying me… and that was to have a child, set up an heir for the Mitchell estate. Ever since I told him I was carrying a baby he's been distant, cold… we haven't slept in the same room even since the start of the pregnancy, and all those rumours… all those rumours I shot down when he was handsome and rich and wanted to marry me… they're true, Claire. I caught him with one of the secretaries in his bedroom last week…"

"Karen, I-"

Her sister holds her hand up, silencing her.

"He's never loved me, Claire. I don't think he's got the capability of really loving me… getting a wife that would have him a baby was his only intention, and from that moment he turned straight back to every woman that comes anywhere near this estate… don't get me wrong, I can be happy… I promise you, motherhood is like nothing else you've ever felt, it's a whole new level of wonderful… but I thought there was love in this marriage. I thought that it was just luck it was the sensible, respectable thing to be doing alongside the love, and the passion… It's 1964, Claire. You don't have to marry anyone you don't want to… and if there's no love from the start…" she gives a tiny, almost bitter chuckle, "I always thought you and that boy… even when we were little… that sounds real, Claire. I've never heard you talk like that about anyone else…"

Claire's blood runs cold. Because unless she's much mistaken, Karen – who's always been the golden daughter, the well behaved daughter, the proper daughter – is telling her she needs to listen to Owen's ultimatum, she needs to somehow escape the marriage she's being shoved into, the confines of her proper, respectable existence, all for love. She never thought she'd see that.

"I… I can't just… I…"

Karen smiles. "I get that it's all terrifying, Claire. I get that feeling like that… it's overwhelming, it's impossible, you don't feel like you can breathe…. But if that's real, if he's giving you that back… that's invaluable, and a hell of a lot more important that anything you've ever thought mattered… Choose love, Claire. That's the only way you'll ever have a chance at being happy."

The words sinks in, but suddenly she can't breathe.

"I… I can't…"

Karen reaches into her pocket, pulling something out. "Let me give you something, Claire. For when you decide you can." She presses something into her sister's palm, and when Claire looks down it's a wad of notes, some hundred dollars.

"I couldn't, I…"

"I won't hear it." Karen's always had the ability to sound almost cold when she's stubborn and determined. "It's my philandering asswipe of a husband's anyway… it won't solve everything, but it'll get you going… find you a place to stay, away from here… find you a new life…" she takes a deep breath, and squeezes the money into her sister's hand. "Live the life that I'm never going to get a chance to, Claire. Don't throw an opportunity like this away."

* * *

She thinks on it as she drives home, her sister's total acceptance of the whole thing echoing around her head. For a moment, and only for a moment, as she drives past the turning, she considers driving down to the stables, accepting all his terms, and running for the hills, but in truth, she's a coward.

It's not what she knows, it doesn't make sense, these feelings, not really, and she can't see the future in her mind's eye if she takes this risk, makes this gamble, and she's not sure she can keep treading water like that.

As she skulks back into solitude a little self-loathing rears its ugly head at her. If only she was brave enough, if only she was a gambler, if only…

* * *

The following morning, she's awakened by a knock on her door. For a moment, and only a moment, her life isn't happening, and she's back exactly as she was before the Dearing estate hadn't been going to slip her grasp, before she'd even allowed herself to think anything about the fact that Owen Grady was back on the estate with years at sea behind him and a different look in his eyes, before she'd even allowed herself to think of the oldest Hoskins boy as anything but particularly creepy. Only a moment, though, and suddenly she crashes back to reality – to the world where she's so much more of a woman than she was back then, where she's torn in two inside between loving the man between the sheets in that threadbare stable cabin bed and the fact that it'll never be what she's allowed to have, what she should have, her future.

As she crashes back to this hopeless situation, she wraps her robe around her and opens her bedroom door. The housekeeper smiles at her brightly, but Claire thinks for a moment she sees something that looks like pity. She shakes herself, and convinces herself she couldn't possibly have, because what does Iris the housekeeper know about the way her life is crashing down around her ears.

"Miss Dearing… your mother wanted you informed that Master Hoskins is coming for breakfast."

Something cold rushes through her body, and for a moment she can't speak – because suddenly it's like everything is really real, it's not some horrible distant future she can push to the back of her mind. Suddenly, she's going to have to come to terms with her own inadequacies. She swallows.

"Miss Dearing?"

She looks up, meeting Iris's smile, and it's definitely kindly, if she's hiding the pity. "Sorry, Iris. Thank you. I'll present myself accordingly… what time is the breakfast being served?"

Iris' answer falls on deaf ears, and as she steps back into her room, bolting the door, she feels fast, shallow breaths pounding down on her, her heart thumping in her chest, bile rising in her throat. Because suddenly that truth, that future is crashing down on her so quickly it's suffocating her.

And she can't even think about what it is she really wants, because then she'll stop treading water and sink.

* * *

She rises out of her breakfast seat, ever the well behaved lady, when he saunters into the room, that seedy smirk on his face that makes her skin crawl.

"Miss Dearing." He smiles, running his eyes up and down her figure. The power he holds with that look almost floors her. Because she's always been confident in who she is, she's always been quite content with her looks and she's always felt safe in herself, but suddenly, with his eyes searing over her like she's a piece of meat, she feels like every inch of her body is dirty, she wants to cover it all in anything, like he's taken her own self from her and made it a curse.

She shakes herself, imperceptibly. Because it's just a look.

But in that moment, she knows it has to stay just a look. Because intimacy with this man, this man's hands all over the body that he can mar even with his eyes, she realises in that moment that cannot even be a possibility. So, as she cordially shakes his hand and tries not to vomit as he kisses her cheek, she makes a promise to herself.

A promise that somehow, she's going to be brave enough to get out of this.

* * *

Of course it isn't that easy, though. When, after the breakfast, and the long time they spent discussing the 'practicalities' of when the wedding would be (this coming summer), what it would entail (Victor would like there only to be society folk there, none of the staff visible) and who it would include (he had a number of 'gents' from work who would come with their 'latest squeeze' and family, but other than that all their guests needed to be beneficial to invite), after allowing the completely detestable man to kiss her cheek again, his breath hotter and heavier this time with the greasy huge breakfast he had requested, she had retired to her bedroom, saying something about a headache from the change in weather.

The moment she finds herself alone, and the door closed and locked behind her, she's collapsing against the pillows, sudden, huge, shoulder wracking sobs shaking her body. Because how, exactly, is she going to get out of this? Talking to her parents about not favouring the engagement isn't even worth considering, she'd be both shut down and a further disappointment to the estate in a breath. She knows where she'd like to be, in two or five or ten years time, but somehow the places she wants to be; in her professional life, in her family life, in her bed, don't fit together like the pieces of a puzzle.

Karen's words echo in her head. Choose love, Claire. That's the only way you'll ever have a chance at being happy.

Rubbing her eyes roughly, hoping not too much damage has been done to her makeup, she grits her teeth.

Everything's changing. She's not going to stand here and just let it all happen, not anymore. She's going to kickstart the change.

Checking the money from Karen is still in her pocket, and wrapping her fist round it like it's some sort of lifeline, she slips her feet into her riding boots and opens her bedroom door.

She needs to go down to the stables. She has someone to speak to.

 **Thanks for your patience! Hope you enjoyed - would love to hear what you think!**


	6. the choice

**Here we go again…**

 **Chapter Six**

In reality, after a near miss with her mother in the corridor, inviting her to join her and the Captain entertaining some of her father's old military colleagues and their wives for luncheon, the first opportunity she can find to sneak out without being noticed is so late in the afternoon, she's worried he'll be packing up in the stables, heading home across town. As she rushes down across the grounds, she doesn't even think to worry what she'll say if someone asks her why she's in such a hurry, for the first time she doesn't have a story prepared for the urgent business she needs to discuss with the stable hand, she doesn't have excuses. She's giddy on something of a finality she doesn't even quite understand herself… she feels free.

Luckily, he's just hanging up Rex's tack when she bursts into the stable with such hurry Gray the young, temperamental stallion starts pawing the floor at the disturbance. Owen, who'd been humming something melancholy sounding absent-mindedly to himself, looks up at that.

Despite all the things she has planned to say, all the overflowing emotions – suddenly, when he's looking at her with one raised eyebrow and that tiny half smile on his face – suddenly she chokes on all her words and just opens her mouth on nothing at all, looking slightly gormless in the stable doorway.

He chuckles. "Can I help you, Miss Dearing?" he asks with a feigned, false air of politeness, but turns back to the tack wall, continuing to hang up Rex's bridle.

She heaves a huge, exasperated sigh. This is how it's always going to be, she supposes, he's always going to drive her completely crazy.

"Look at me, Owen."

He spins, and she can almost see the comment about not being Mr Grady today dying on his lips as he sees something altogether different in her eyes.

Suddenly, it's like she's a kettle and she's finally boiled, and everything is happening at once. "You infuriate me! How is this ever going to work, I-"

"Claire-"

She puts her hand up, silencing him. "I'm talking." She hisses, and where sometimes he might have argued at that, the slight shift in the air around them he can't quite place makes him take heed. "You think that just because I love you I'll tolerate anything… I'm here bearing my heart to you, throwing my whole life away because I can't think of anything I'd rather do that choose to be with you, however stupid that is, however much I'm a fool… I'm giving you everything, Owen, and you don't even have the decency to look at me, I-"

Somehow, in the time she's been shouting all that, he's found himself right in front of her, only inches away, and suddenly his fingers on her lips, and there's an almost apprehensive smile on his face, like he's nervous to fully process what she's saying to him.

"Breathe, Claire." He whispers, so quietly it's barely there, like he doesn't trust his voice any more that his smile.

"But… I…."

"Shhhh…" he breathes, cupping her cheek with his hand now, running his thumb across her cheekbone tenderly, almost reverently, like he thought it was something he'd never have again. And she supposes it almost was.

She leans into his hand, letting her eyes close for a moment, and then taking a deep breath.

"I can't do it, Owen, I can't…. _pretend_ anymore… and that man…" she shudders, "I can't give myself to anyone else like I give myself to you… I can't… I don't know what you've done to me, not really… I was never going to give this life away for anything… and then suddenly Mother and the Captain are passing me off… and everything's slipping away… and suddenly you're the only thing I want to hold onto, Owen… the only thing I just. can't. lose. I-"

She's interrupted as his lips crush down on hers, and it feels like their first kiss on the docks, lifetimes and worlds away, with teeth clashing and puzzle pieces not quite finding their fit.

He pulls back and rests his forehead against hers, breathless. She looks up into his eyes for a moment, that tiny smile on her lips, before closing her eyes and wrapping one of her hands around the back of his neck, threading up into his hair.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying, Claire?" he's still whispering.

She gives a tiny, almost imperceptible nod, pressing her lips chastely against his, again.

"I choose you. Over everything." She leans back, giving him a somewhat bitter smile. "I kind of hate you for it… I was never going to be _that girl_ , I was always my own person, I… but I choose you. It's you I can't live without, Owen, I've realised… everything else… everything that was so important to you… everything that was my _everything_ before you threw yourself back in-" that soft, rumbling chuckle she loves so much escapes him, widening her smile, "-that's not really anything I can't survive without… but you… from that moment… I haven't got a choice, not really. I choose you."

He traces her cheekbone again, so lightly she can hardly feel it, and suddenly every inch of her is _quivering_ with want for him, with need, with love.

"I love you so much." He murmurs, and his voice is gaining some volume, like it's finding its feet again in this entirely new reality that's building up around him.

"I love you." She almost hisses, and he can hear the lust in her voice with that, and his smile widens. Taking her slowly by the hand, between chaste, gentle kisses, he leads her through into the stable office and then on into the stable cabin.

 _Back where it all started,_ she thinks as he locks and bolts the door behind them, turning back to her with a look in his eyes that almost brings a lump to her throat, and strangely, it's Karen's words echoing in her mind in that moment.

 _Choose love, Claire._

So she chooses love, and forgets everything else, if only for tonight. She takes a step into his arms, leaning into his embrace as their lips come back into contact, and this time it's the opposite of the kiss earlier that echoed their first, before they even really knew who they were, what they were feeling, where they were going with their lives – this one's like the kiss of an old married couple, two lovers so familiar with every ounce, every corner of each other they move with a fluidity that never ceases. Their tongues tease one another, coming into contact for only a moment, and she finds him threading the fingers of one hand into her hair, and the tracing and slipping the buttons of her blouse with the other.

Her breath hitches as she hooks her leg up around his hip and she feels his growing erection against her thigh. God, she'd missed him, she'd missed this. Suddenly his fingers are tracing under her blouse, between the layers of material, dancing nimbly across her skin, across the hardened nipple under the lace of her brassiere, and his lips are travelling away from hers, over her chin, down her throat, tracing her collarbone with his tongue.

He's slower that he's ever been, gentler and softer, like she's almost holy, and he feels somehow unworthy. She can't be having that, she thinks as she finds the button of his stable breeches, sliding her hand down over his length and cupping his balls, catching him unawares as he bites into her shoulder.

She pushes his pants roughly over his hips, and he seems to have got the message for now, it's suddenly the familiar fast and urgent she knows well, as he finishes with her blouse and pushes it back over her shoulders, leaving her in her brassiere. As he staggers back to pull his pants off, she slips her jodhpurs and riding boots off and tosses them into the corner, her hands finding their way back to his now fully erect cock, dancing on the sensitive skin, driving him to buck his hips against her.

"Claire, I won't last…" he gasps, trying to draw her hands out of his underpants, finish undressing her, but she just laughs, and presses her lips momentarily against his as she rips his underpants off.

"I love you, I'm sorry… I choose you…" she whispers as she starts tracing her mouth down over his neck, mapping the pattern of his open shirt, walking him back towards the bed.

Because suddenly, and for the first time, she needs to be completely in control. Both that she wants to be, feeling all newly empowered from deciding to do something that would tar the Dearing family name and have her banished from their local society friends forever, and that she owes it to him. After every time he's made it all about her, all about how she's feeling, all about what's best for her.

As she takes another step forward and the backs of his legs hit the cabin bed, she pushes him down onto it, and settles into his lap, guiding his mouth to her breast as she pushes the shirt off his shoulders. She marvels for a moment at having Owen Grady completely naked and at her mercy underneath her, with his tongue dancing devilish patterns on the puckered skin of her nipple, before she slides off his lap and sinks to her knees on the floor between his legs.

She almost sees his breath hitch, then, and she finds her smile widening.

"You don't have to, Claire…" he hisses, looking down at her, in nothing but a pair of lace knickers, on her knees, her smile inches away from his cock.

"I want to." She whispers, giving him one more sly smile before leaning down and kissing the tip, before letting him slide into her warm wet mouth.

He doesn't even consider himself answerable for the curses that come spilling out of his mouth, but he grits his teeth and forces himself to stay still, letting her adjust. She snakes her tongue slowly and tantalising all around him, and as she starts pulling away and then moving back in, so she takes him even deeper, hitting the back of her throat, he starts to let his hips rock.

He tastes kind of salty, warm, and _forbidden_ , and with the curses turning into grunts and groans, she loves how vocal he is about how she's making him feel. He rocks his hips against her, thrusting very slightly into her mouth, and she can almost feel him _throbbing._

He pulls back suddenly, almost growling as he tugs her off the floor and up onto the mattress, pulling her knickers down and off her legs, lining himself up with her.

"Let me finish inside you."

He doesn't wait for an answer, after sliding his fingers once to check how ready she is, he slides into her, buried to the hilt. She feels his balls slap against her as he thrusts into her, and she feels her own orgasm building with an almost unfamiliar speed.

It's hot, and it's messy, and their mouths make contact a few rough times before his lips find their way back around her nipple as she feels herself building almost to the finish line.

She can still taste the salt of him and half feel how hard and _huge_ he feels in her mouth as she comes suddenly, muscles clamping around him, bringing him to his end almost simultaneously.

As he slides out and rolls off of her, curling himself loosely around her, she feels his hot and sticky seed falling between her thighs.

"I can't catch my breath." She laughs, turning to face him, pressing her lips against his jaw.

He runs his fingers through her hair gently, and the love in his eyes isn't any less. "You're something amazing, you know that, Claire?" he whispers.

She gives him a tiny, almost embarrassed smile. "I wanted to make it as good for you as you make it for me."

That deep, rumbling chuckle. "It's **always** that good for me with you, Claire, I promise you."

"Yes, but-" she starts.

"Yes, but." He mocks softly. "What changed your mind? What made you realise you didn't have to be unhappy for the rest of your life?"

She muses for a second, and then smiles at him. "I found out someone I love dearly, in a _proper_ marriage that looks perfect, is terribly unloved and unhappy. And she… she told me to grasp the chance I have at happiness, though maybe it's not what I thought it was… she told me to pick you."

He can't get the smile off his face that looks like a child on Christmas morning.

"That simple, huh?" he laughs lightly.

"That simple."

 **It's not that simple, of course it's not, there's certainly going to be drama in them getting away and they've got a little bit of money from Karen and very little else other than each other, but it's going to be great! You guys have one more chapter of this one to look forward to, followed by the final part to the trilogy!**

 **You know you want to leave me another review!**


	7. the promise

**And here we go, guys, here's the final chapter of the second fic in this trilogy! Sorry, for the final time, of the time delay before this chapter. I've been terrible this fic, I know. Maybe it's the fanfic gods telling me I shouldn't be posting multi-chaps before completing the story, as used to be my ethos… I dunno. Anyway, look out for the final story in the near future…**

 **Chapter Seven**

The sun streams through the tiny window into the stable cabin, warming the parts of her skin exposed, not in contact with either the thin, well-worn sheets or Owen's flesh. She stirs, letting her fingers run absentmindedly across the skin of his shoulder, pressing her lips against his collarbone.

They've found themselves curled around each other in their sleep, their legs entangled, and for a tiny moment, everything is _easy_ , everything is as it should be. But then the real world starts flooding down on her like a ton of bricks, and she feels a shudder running through her. Because everything changes, now.

There's a half-hearted, half-asleep groan from the man with his arms around her, and he laces his fingers through hers.

"Five more minutes…" he breathes, burying his head in her hair. She chuckles, and there's a bitter tinge to it.

"This isn't gonna be easy…" she whispers, the fear evident in her voice. He cracks one eye open and squeezes her hand a little tighter.

"Five more minutes before we have to do something…" he whispers, his other hand finding and cupping her hip bone, pushing her up to almost on top of him. "Before we have to enter the real world…"

She finds a wry smile crossing her face despite the emotions, primarily the _fear_ of what is to come, that are bubbling up inside of her. "And what do you-" she sears her mouth against his, hard, "-propose we do with those five minutes?"

He raises her off him slightly, propping her up so she's sat atop him like a jockey riding one of the prize Dearing stallions, and he snakes the hand entwined in hers up her arm, over her shoulder and down to cup her breast, thumbing the nipple, licking his lips.

"Any manner of inappropriate things…" he half laughs as she descends her mouth to his again, tongue tangling into his teeth, dancing, begging for entrance. She braces herself against the pillow behind him, freeing his left hand, which strokes almost teasingly down her back, giving a light smack to her buttocks as it slides past to find its destination between her legs.

She gives a little _'oh'_ as he pinches her, sending waves of pleasure coursing through the lower half of her body, inciting her to rock her hips forward, fit against him like a puzzle piece, and sink down onto him, with a grace and an ease that's almost beautiful.

"Fuck, Claire." He hisses as he finds himself buried to the hilt almost instantly. She has a moment of bizarre self-awareness as she muses how much he's changed her, how the very first time his crude, vulgar language turned her stomach and left her shuddering, and now she's close to letting his body drive her to cursing in the throes of passion. She only muses on herself for a second, and then his hips start that tantalising circling that drives her own to move.

As has always been the case, the pleasure he brings coursing through her body in barely moments, with sometimes little more than the contact of his body with hers, has her _forgetting_ everything. He's like a drug of some kind, she's sure, he blocks out all sensibility and all duty and sometimes she's not even sure she would be able to tell you her name as her climax reaches its peak.

It's building, at some sort of breakneck speed this time, and his fingers are still playing between her thighs, caressing her clit, and his mouth's around her nipple again, his teeth just grazing lightly, hinting at something more… something more dangerous, like he hasn't proven himself enough of a _hazard_ already.

Suddenly, she realises she's been forgetting to breathe, shuddering, gasping breaths shaking her shoulders, and she can feel that hot white burning between her legs rising and becoming all-consuming and robbing her of breath again, and all conscious thought, and the ability to say anything in English, until suddenly she's convulsing around him, shaking, gasping, and he swears and pummels his last few times into her before emptying inside her, his head leaning back against the pillow in some kind of rapture.

"Marry me." He whispers as he comes crashing down from his high, so quietly she's not sure she didn't imagine it. Collapsing against him, with his softening cock still inside her, and her forehead against his collarbone, she chooses to decide she was dreaming.

As he threads his fingers into her hair, tugging her face up and pressing his lips lightly against hers, repeating himself, she's less able to pretend she didn't hear anything.

"Marry me."

She gives him something of a lopsided smile as she tries to catch her breath.

"We gotta get out before we start thinking about things like that…" she whispers, lacing her fingers in his hair.

"But I mean it, Claire." He brushes her lips with his, barely touching. "It's not just that I don't want this to end, however wonderful this is… I'm completely head over hills in love with you, think I always have been… I want to run away with you and find ourselves our place, somewhere, and marry you and I'd love you to have my babies, if you like, and I want to grow old with you and be laid in bed like this with you in my arms until we're a hundred and three…"

She swallows, and for a moment, he thinks he's gone too far, too fast, and that almost word-vomit will have cost him everything, but when speaks she sounds choked, and he's sure there's a tear in her eye.

"And all this time you were such a romantic, Mr Grady…" she gives a light chuckle, presses her lips to his and rolls off him, slowly, languidly. "… this isn't going to get any easier, the longer I leave it, is it?"

He shakes his head slowly, once, watching her pull her clothes back on haphazardly.

"Wish me luck. I'm gonna go announce to anyone who might be listening in the house that for the first time in my life I'm not doing what I'm supposed to, I'm not gonna be the Claire Dearing they thought I was, and I'm choosing what I absolutely shouldn't…"

* * *

She steps into her bedroom, and pulls the old suitcase out of the closet at the foot of the bed. As she opens her closet and starts pulling out and haphazardly folding a few of her more _practical_ items of clothing, her stable shirts and cords and jumpers, she's struck by how this feels both weirdly surreal and almost hauntingly _normal_ at the same time.

It's like she's packing for a weekend at her sister's, or a city break across Mississippi with Zara the mayor's daughter. Not like she's compressing the entire life she's ever lived into that small leather suitcase and looking on rooms, out of windows for quite possibly the last time.

And maybe it all feels so normal because there's not an ounce of regret in her mind, an ounce of doubt. She feels, for the first time since this all began, with the uninterested announcement that she was to be married, when she ended up almost literally _falling_ into bed with Owen Grady and never getting back out of it, like she's completely in control. Like she's finally making a decision about what she wants from her life.

As she locks the case and starts to carry it out of her room, she almost collides with Iris the housekeeper.

"You off somewhere, young Miss Dearing?" Iris asks with a smile in her voice and a twinkle in her eye that Claire's known ever since childhood. For a moment she feels a pang, not quite of regret, but off an almost realisation of everything she's leaving behind, everything she's stepping away from. She's known Iris since before she can remember, and the kindly older woman had been a darn sight more motherly to her than her mother ever had – she thinks, if only for a second, on all those people in her life that she's walking away from, without thanks, without goodbyes. She swallows, and smiles.

"I'm going away… for a while, Iris." She tries her very hardest to keep the false smile plastered on her face, but suspects it falters, as Iris looks a little suspiciously at her. What had she suspected from someone who had known her her whole life?

"Thank you for everything you've ever done for me." She says, sounding a lot more confident that she feels. "I've never said that enough."  
Iris is fully frowning at her now. "You're welcome, Miss Dearing… you've never needed to… are you-"

But Claire's walking away slightly briskly before Iris has chance to fully form her question, for fear of everything imploding within her. And now is not the time, not the place. She's hoping for an implosion when she makes her announcement.

* * *

She finds both her parents drinking coffee in the same room, and for a moment feels her heart almost sinking that she's found the perfect opportunity. Because it would be so much easier to make her excuses about not being able to pin down the Captain and Mrs Dearing and disappear off like she's never even been there in the first place. Her mother looks up as she steps into the room with her suitcase, the Captain keeps smoking his cigar, staring absentmindedly out the window.

"Going to Karen's again so soon?" her mother asks, glancing back down at the newspaper she's reading, without a care in the world, with the same amount of interest she's always shown in her daughters and their activities.

Claire swallows. It's now or never.

"I'm leaving." She states, and there's a cadence in her voice with more strength than she could ever have imagined. "I'm not marrying Victor Hoskins, I'm not being shovelled off to the Hoskins estate… I've got someone I'm leaving with."

There's silence for a moment, and even the Captain's looking at her incredulously, as if of all the things he had expected from his fiery, headstrong youngest daughter, this was not one of them.

She needs to fill the silence. It lays heavy, and she watches her mother turn more and more ashen.

"I'm leaving with Owen Grady."

The Captain lets out a low whistle but not yet a word, still rendered speechless.

Her mother, who has apparently found her tongue amidst all the shock, almost rolls her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous, Claire. I always knew that Grady boy was trouble… You're engaged, you're marrying into a well-established family on a lovely estate, you're being-"

"I'm not being ridiculous, or anything of the sort, Mother." She sounds tired, exhausted even, but stubborn and strong. "I've made the decision to walk away from this life. And certainly from the life that you were going to send me into… I'm in love, and I'm choosing love… I'm going to be happy. We're not going to be rich, or well-established, or important… but we're going to be happy."

Her mother looks as if she's about to start belittling Claire's intentions right away, but the Captain speaks.

"Mr Grady will no longer be employed at the stables. And you can inform him he will not be receiving this month's wages."  
There's another heavy silence as her blood runs cold, a realisation of sorts solidifying in her mind.

She looks at the two people sat in front of her, claiming to be her parents, but behaving quite unlike one should. The lack of care, respect or understanding they seem prepared to show her is deafening, if only for a moment. Then she lifts her suitcase back off the floor.

"I will pass your message on." She says through gritted teeth, and as she turns and steps back through the door, into the corridor and towards the staircase, towards tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, she half expects something more. Anything, even if it's the Captain demanding she turn back – but she hears nothing.

She keeps walking out the front door.

* * *

As she walks down to the stables, with nothing more than the little leather suitcase and the clothes on her back, she finds a smile breaking across her face, one she can hardly contain. She's finally taken the reins, she's finally steering this beast that is her life, and it feels good.

As she walks through into the stable cabin, he looks up from where he's sat, eyes registering the suitcase and the smile on her face all at once, and he can't help smiling himself.

She sets the suitcase down, and leans forward and kisses him – lightly, tenderly, before pulling back and resting her forehead against his.

"As expected, Mother and the Captain are not impressed or approving, although apparently I mean so little to them they let me walk out of the door without saying another word…" Owen winces and threads his fingers up into her hair. "… the Captain only had the decency to let me know you're not being paid for this month, and Mother felt the need to tell me I was being ridiculous…"

Owen lets out that low, rough chuckle she loves so much at that. "There's no harm in being a little ridiculous, every now and then…"

She rolls her eyes, and kisses him lightly. "And of course I'll marry you."

He locks his eyes with hers, feeling like his heart's skipping a beat. "You will?"

He loves that giggle of hers almost as much as she loves his laugh. "Of course. I never can say no to you…"

There are so many unsaid things there, so many obstacles they've overcome, so many times she's had to say no to him, but now isn't time for thoughts like that. He kisses her again, chastely, but there's something more there.

"I've got a flat down in the town, and a week's rent already paid… that should be our first stop… then we can look where we escape to from there…"

She pulls back, her smile almost shy as she takes his hand.

"What are we waiting for? Take me anywhere."

He lifts her suitcase off the floor and leads her out the stable cabin and down to the track that leads to the main road, and on to town, leaving the Dearing estate in the background.

She doesn't look back, not once.

 **Fin**

 **That's a wrap! Thank you so much for all your support along the way, despite my shockingly appalling regular posting. It's very much appreciated.**

 **And I just want to cover my back here – I am aware Claire and Owen are having a whole bunch of unprotected sex, and that has consequences. Bear in mind it has only been two months, and I didn't want to take the fanfic trope of the accidental baby forcing actions in this story… So I'm not advocating unprotected sex, kids. Use protection.**


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